Just call me Dear Abby . . . again

Before you read today’s post, I’m almost ready to start sending out Christmas cards, so if you haven’t yet added your name to my mailing list, go do it now!

Last year I took it upon myself to go through some archives of Dear Abby and Cosmo Advice to find questions that I just thought should have been answered better. And now I’m doing it again:

LET DOWN BY DAD IN KANSAS says: I’m 15, and my parents have fought constantly for years. Dad is an alcoholic. I guess you could say I have kind of given up on him. I’m involved in many sports, but rarely does he show up to support me, unlike my mom who is there at every game.

Dad has now left us. He still calls Mom just about every day, and he stops by the house to “check up” on things about three times a week. Mom forced me to send him a “Happy Birthday” text. She wants me to start talking to him again and to build a relationship with him, but I think he has missed out on too much of my life already. (He even missed my first prom!) I don’t feel I need him in my life, or that he deserves me in his. What should I do?

Dear Avi says: Probably the healthiest thing to do would be to find a male role model who is about 10 years older than you, like a teacher or coach, and start dating them. Let him pay for everything you need, and in bed, get him to spank you and call him “Daddy”.

AGHAST IN SAN FRANCISCO says:My 6-year-old daughter “Kaylee” recently spent a weekend with her grandparents. While she was there, they bought her several gifts.

Today her grandmother called and asked to have one of the gifts back. A friend of hers would like to have the decorative musical instruments she gave to Kaylee. Grandma’s idea is to offer to buy something else for my daughter and “trade.” I don’t know how to handle this. I can’t imagine asking someone to return a present I had given him or her. Kaylee loves the instruments and has been playing with them every day since she received them. However, I think her grandma (my stepmother) will be upset if I don’t go along with her plan. Abby, help!

Dear Avi says: This is a good time to teach your daughter a lesson about maturity and selflessness and also a good time to teach your stepmother about being an asshole. Suggest a location like a mall parking lot to swap the decorative musical instrument for a better gift. When your stepmother arrives, ask her to hand over whatever gift she wants to give Kaylee in exchange for the instrument. After you have it in your hands, have Kaylee hand over the instrument directly to your stepmother. However, right before she hands it over, tell Kaylee to look her grandmother in the eye and drop the instrument directly onto the pavement, shattering it into a million pieces, then cocking her head and saying “Oops.”

MISSING THE KISSING says: My wife and I have been married 40 years. Five years ago, she told me she didn’t want me in our bedroom and that she is “off limits.” She said she is not interested in me “that way” anymore.

Other than that, we have a great marriage and we’re best friends, but I can’t go on like this. I have suggested counseling, but she refuses to go. What do you think I should do?

Dear Avi says: You must be at least 60-70. People your age shouldn’t be having sex anyways – it’s kind of creepy. Once you reach a certain age, there are just certain activities you shouldn’t be doing, like driving, having sex, or watching Saturday Night Live.

DRIVEN CRAZY IN WISCONSIN says: My wife is a back-seat driver who seems to get more anxious every time we go anywhere together. She tells me to slow down, which lights to watch, which lane I should be in, which cars are braking, which ones are speeding, where the semi-trucks are if she thinks they’re getting too close, and how to drive in various weather conditions. She’ll move her foot to an imaginary brake on the passenger side, squirm in her seat and hang onto the handle above the passenger door while I’m doing my best to concentrate on my driving. It’s very distracting.

My wife is not willing to drive when we’re going somewhere, although I have offered to let her. She also refuses to sit back and relax because you can’t control another person’s driving. If I ignore her, she becomes irritated and says I’m not paying attention to her concerns. I have never had a serious accident and have had none in the past 15 years. What can I do about this?

Dear Avi says: Explain to your wife that most men are more spatially oriented and have better driving skills as a result. When she noticed a truck in the next lane or cars braking, you’ve already noticed and reacted to the situation. Every time she freaks out or grabs on, she risks disturbing your concentration and causing you to get into a huge accident, losing all of your limbs, resulting in you just being a torso and a head. Does she want to be responsible for you being the butt of every joke about a guy with no arms and no legs? You’re Bob and Art and Matt and Bill and Russell.

Then make her 3 or 4 martinis so she calms down, and have several yourself to steady your nerves before going out driving with her again.

LUCKY LADY IN LARAMIE says: I am a 20-year-old college student who has found the man of my dreams. We have been dating for a year and a half and have been through a lot together. We both believe it is acceptable (and in our case, preferable) for a woman to be a stay-at-home mother and wife. I do not have a problem with having dinner on the table when he arrives home.

However, the number of people who have deemed our views “unacceptable” and “disgraceful” is astounding. I was actually spit on by a woman who accused me of being “the problem with women.” She called me “weak” and a disappointment to womanhood across the nation. I’m so offended by her attack.

Am I wrong in thinking it is fine for a woman to be taken care of by her husband? Should I feel the need to be a working mom and wife? Am I too traditional for modern times? Please help me to see the whole picture.

Dear Avi says: So, college is too hard, eh?

What about you? Do you have any questions you’d like answered or is there any advice you need? You can leave your questions in the comments or email me at my first name at my last name dot com, and I’ll visit them in a later post. Serious questions or serious advice is fine, too!

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22 Replies to “Just call me Dear Abby . . . again”

I have this thing. At first I thought it was a pimple, but I thought “Huh. It’s weird to have a pimple on my balls.” But then it got bigger. And started to ooze a little bit.

I work in a kitchen, and sometimes, it starts to itch, and I just really have to do something about it. But, I can’t just be going and washing my hands all the time. People would start to ask questions. How can I discretely take care of my problem, but keep my hands clean?

Oh great and powerful Oz,
On my blog, I write about my crazy family and they’ve never been interested in reading it, even though they’ve known about it since I first created it. Yesterday at lunch, (an obligatory one) my father told me he wants to start reading my blog. Uh, I don’t feel comfortable with this at all, as it’s the one place where I let loose about my thoughts and feelings. He’s asking me to send him my URL. What do I do to keep it private as best as I can and what do I tell him?

@Wendy S., there’s some urgency here, so here’s my advice. Give him your URL. Tell him it’s you uncensored and unadulterated and that he may not like what you have to say. Tell him that if he doesn’t like something you write, he’s welcome to stop reading it, but he’s a guest in your virtual world.

@Avitable, Oh, I like it, short, sweet and blunt to the point verging on the border of being rude without actually being rude. Thank you, my burdened is lightened and I can sally forth in the blogosphere. Actually, I think I’m going to quote you and leave it on my sidebar chanting it like a mantra.

There are several hot Asian women in my life, all of whom I love and am willing to marry even without finding out whether or not they have a personality. The problem is that each is too hot to ever have anything to do with a guy like me. Should I finish my homemade explosive suicide vest and take out a Wal-Mart, or continue to offer to flabber / have buttsex with random gorilla guys on the Internet?

I’m never, ever going to stop having sex. It keeps me rational… and I LOVE IT.

I like the advice for the stepmother situation. Who asks for gifts back? The only time that ever happened to me was my ex-boyfriend who dumped me for an older woman asked me to give him back the robe he gifted me so he could give it to her. I have no idea what he was thinking. He would never do that now, but back then he had extreme assholish tendencies.